Zillow co-founder Spencer Rascoff is raising a third blank-check company, according to regulatory filings. The 45-year-old’s Supernova Partners Acquisition Company III is seeking $250 million to invest in the tech sector, the filing said.
Rascoff left Zillow in 2019 and has since founded Pacaso, a second-home startup. Amid the SPAC frenzy of the past year, Rascoff has come out strongly in favor of special purpose acquisition companies as an alternative to the traditional IPO process, which he says is broken.
Rascoff’s first SPAC raised $350 million in October 2020. He launched a second one, aiming to raise $250 million, on Feb. 10.
At the time, he tweeted a response to warnings too many SPACs are hunting for deals. Last year, 248 SPACs went public, raising $83 billion. So far this year, 154 SPACs have gone public, raising $46.7 billion, according to SPAC Insider.
“There are too many SPACs, but there aren’t too many good SPACs — ones that add value to a private company as it enters the public markets,” Rascoff wrote.
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Spencer Rascoff launches second SPAC
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With Supernova III, Rascoff is partnering with Sotheby’s Financial Services’ Alexander Klabin, ex-Blackstone Group exec Robert Reid, former Carlyle Group principal Michael Clifton.
While Supernova doesn’t have a real estate focus, a growing number of industry players are hunting for proptech deals.
Jack Chandler
The latest is a group including Jack Chandler, former chairman of BlackRock Real Estate, and Christopher Keber, a former Hines and Starwood executive. Their Shelter Acquisition Corporation I is seeking $200 million to take a proptech startup public, according to a regulatory filing Thursday.
The team also includes Danion Fielding, former CFO of Getty Realty; Kathleen Collins, a tech investor; Chris Bledsoe, co-founder of co-living startup Ollie, which was sold to Starcity in December; and Whitney Topping, a PR and marketing executive.
In its regulatory filing, Shelter said proptech investing has surged since 2014, resulting in mature companies that are ready for an IPO. “We believe the proptech sector is now fully accepted and a robust set of companies have grown to a point that demands consideration of public market capital,” the filing said.
Christopher Keber
Other recent SPAC entrants include Silverstein Properties’ Tal Kerret and Charlie Federman, co-founders of Silvertech Ventures, the development firm’s accelerator and venture capital arm.
Tishman Speyer, the Chera Family, Howard Lutnick and Fifth Wall Ventures have also formed SPACs, and home-services startup Porch.com and iBuyer Opendoor have gone public via the SPAC route. Smart-glass maker View, smart-lock company Latch and virtual-tour firm Matterport have struck deals to do the same.